


Thyself, Too

by WizardSandwich



Series: Memento Mori [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardSandwich/pseuds/WizardSandwich
Summary: “I can’t be a medic anymore,” he says. “Those days are long past.”
Relationships: Elita One/Optimus Prime, Inferno/Red Alert
Series: Memento Mori [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860151
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Thyself, Too

**Author's Note:**

> i went head first into this i'm so sorry

“This is the medic?” Elita-1 asks. Her cold, mourning optics run over First Aid’s frame. Red Alert can practically feel the little mech tense under her inspection. “He’s not much.”

“He was Ratchet’s apprentice,” Red Alert says stubbornly, setting his jaw and meeting her optics. He understands the distrust, the distance, but First Aid is young and has only ever known war. “He left him behind when he went to repair the spacebridge.”

Elita-1 tilts her helm, analyzing First Aid for a moment longer. Then she holds out her servo, “I’ll be your commanding officer. My name is Elita-1.”

“First Aid,” First Aid replies, voice quieter than a wisp. It’s clear he’s still afraid of her, on some level, but fear has gotten First Aid far. It’s kept him alive. “Nice to meet you, commander.”

Elita-1 doesn’t smile, but her electromagnetic field grows just a bit softer at the edges. It makes Red Alert wonder who she’s reminded of. A young Orion Pax meeting her for the first time? Ratchet? Red Alert himself?

“He’ll be taking over for me in the coming orns.”

“’Taking over?’” First Aid asks, terrified surprise coloring his voice. Red Alert winces. He feels bad for not telling him.

Elita-1’s own surprise shows faster than she can hide it. She takes a moment to compose herself. “’Taking over?’” she echoes them both. “What do you mean?”

“I’m…” Red Alert cannot even begin to explain himself. He doesn’t know how. There are so many things he could say. He drags a tired servo across his face and falls silent.

“Red?” Elita-1 asks and she almost sounds desperate.

Red Alert looks up at her again, meeting her optics. Desperation and fear colors her expression. Red Alert does not know how many more she can lose.

Beside him, First Aid shuffles, likely deciding whether or not he should make a break for it. “First Aid, why don’t you go find Jetfire?” Red Alert says softly. “You know who he is, right?”

“Big, ex-Decepticon, air commander?” First Aid asks, as if swallowing around whatever lump has found its way into his throat.

“Yes.” Red Alert nods. “If you can’t find him, just ask around. Most of them will leave you alone. And if they give you any trouble, tell me.” Red Alert feels protectiveness bubble in his spark, inbuilt coding swallowing everything else whole. First Aid is already one of his own because he was one of Ratchet’s own. “I’ll take care of it,” he promises.

First Aid nods. He doesn’t say another word as he scampers off across the room, darting out faster than Red Alert can blink.

“Red,” Elita-1 repeats, when she’s sure he’s gone, though this time it is less of a question and more of a plea. “Are you—are you leaving?”

Red Alert swallows. He still can’t explain himself. Not in a way that will appease them both. Because he’s not like Ratchet, who abandoned his function, or Megatron, who tore his own spark out to be something different, or Sixgun, who’s content with his lot in life. He’s not anything like that. He doesn’t know how to explain the ill-fitting garb that being a medic has become.

“I am,” he says after a long moment. He stumbles over himself because nothing feels right. There is no right thing to say to her. “I’ll come back. I just—I need to leave. I have something I need to find.”

“What are you trying to find?” Elita-1 asks.

“Myself,” Red Alert doesn’t say.

“Inferno,” he says instead. And it’s a half-truth that he didn’t realize he was holding until now. It hurts to admit.

Elita-1’s face softens. She looks so sad. Perhaps it is for the both of them. They both have people they’ve lost. Inferno is just another number to tally up. Optimus Prime is just another martyr to mourn. The only difference is, Red Alert has long done his mourning.

“Red…” she says.

“I know,” Red Alert returns. “It’s been orbital cycles. He’s been missing since…”

“The Siege of Iacon,” Elita-1 finishes for him. “You’re really going to go back to searching? After all this time?”

“I—” Red Alert starts then stops, brings a servo to cover his optics once more. “We’re all so lost. And if I can find proof that he’s gone, maybe I can let go.”

“Why now?”

Red Alert vents shakily. It feels like he’s giving something up to confess this to her, but there truly is no other way to make her understand.

“I can’t be a medic anymore,” he says. “Those days are long past.”

Somehow, Elita-1’s frown grows deeper. “And you think looking for Inferno will give you a purpose?”

It’s a harsh way to put it, but Red Alert cannot find any fault in her words. They are the truth.

“It’s all I have,” Red Alerts says.

And it is. Prowl, Inferno, Ultra Magnus, anyone who could help him find direction? They’re all dead. Elita-1 is a friend, but she had never understood him the way they had.

“But is it what you want?” she asks, as if that is the secret to this all.

“It doesn’t matter what I want because I don’t know what that is.”

It is as much of the truth as it can be, because Red Alert wants many things. But there are some hurts that he simply cannot heal. He can’t stop Sunstreaker destroying training rooms or Toaster straying to Cybertron’s darkest corners or Jetfire’s vicious vengeance. He can only heal the wounds that come with it all.

Elita-1 sighs. She knows when she has lost and, truly, who is she to stop him?

“Be safe,” she says. In a rare show of affection, she presses her lips to the top of his helm. When she pulls away, she says, “If you die, I’ll kill you myself.”

Red Alert finds it in himself to smile, “Of course, commander.”


End file.
